I am a firm believer that your business reflects you as a person most of the time. As leader of your organisation, whether it be a successful window cleaning company under the ownership and control such as Peter Artusa of All County Window Cleaning ( Awesome famous company on WCM TV https://www.youtube.com/user/MrLeeburbidge ) or whether it be a manufacturer or distributor or your window cleaning company – bottom line is YOU stand as your company’s ethos and character. If you are lazy, your employees will be lazy, if you do not care, your employees will not care. If you are mean to your employees, they will be mean to your customers. YOU represent your company and what it stands for. YOU are its ambassador.

There are companies that I have observed in our industry over the years. I know the good ones and I know the bad ones. I have seen how the bad ones operate and how they treat people. I have seen potential role models act disgracefully and as a result I have in the past made personal decisions not to invest money or time into these areas.

Likewise, I have seen amazing people and companies. I want to thank one of those today.

Some of you know that Richard Clues of RC Property Maintenance, Northampton UK joined me on a new TV show to be screened on ITV in August time this year. We had great fun and viewers will see me and Richard in some compromising hilarious situations.



^^Richard Clues and me filming in Italy for ITV.

The show is based around a camping format where we have to meet challenges and activities throughout the week, some of which were way outside of our comfort zones. There are 5 groups of 2 people and each day one pair has to prepare the camps food or the camps evening entertainment. Part of our entertainment was window cleaning related. Ha ha ha, what else would we do?

We needed to supply 10 people in the camp, quickly with EVERYTHING window cleaning related! BOAB’s, applicators, squeegees, t-shirts – the lot!

Over the years, Steve Blyth, CEO of J Racenstein USA, has become a very close friend. I have personally seen how JRC operates internally, how its staff deals with customers and how JRC is viewed in the industry as a whole, both on stateside and in our own backyard.

( As a matter of fact we still have unedited footage in our vault that we intend to edit and release on WCM TV. A documentary about the inside workings of JRC, it will be AWESOME. We filmed this in both their New Jersey office and their Los Angeles office.)

Mr Blyth’s laid back approach to ‘issues’ and or ‘problems’ is one to be admired. He is a great problem solver and not just for his own personal benefit. He is a man that allows YOU to think in another man’s shoes, to come up with fair proposals that benefit all.

As an industry role model, Steve ranks as one of the highest.

So, I was having dinner with Steve and his wife Karen ( Karen is awesome by the way, with great witty humor. Karen is also involved in JRC, LA) when they were here in the UK. Bob Hatt ( Polz N Bladz ) joined us after our food on that particular day.



^^Left to right: Karen Blyth, Steve Blyth, Bob Hatt, Lee Burbidge

ITV were sending a car to pick me up in 5 days time in order to take me and Richard Clues to Italy for filming and I still had not sorted the window cleaning equipment I needed for the show. Steve was like, “Why don’t you order from so and so and so forth”, and I told him, ” I need someone that I can trust to not let me down, since this was so important and the time was so restricted”.

Well, immediately he was on his cell phone, organising his staff back in the US at the dinner table!!!

“What do you need?”, he said. “Its going to be tight on delivery, but I can ship ahead of the TV company picking you up”.

I thanked Steve and sure enough it arrived ahead of time! Absolutely amazing. Indirectly his actions saved us and we were able to put on an awesome nights entertainment centred around window cleaning. ( see the TV show in August)

Last week my family and I spent vacation time with Peter Artusa and his family, star of Window Wars USA and Peter Artusa: After Window Wars. ( see our YouTube Channel WCM TV https://www.youtube.com/user/MrLeeburbidge )

On that trip, it was great to see Steve and Karen again and we really appreciated the time hanging out with them in NYC and at Peter’s July 4th party.

I want to thank JRC and Steve Blyth for their quick response to my ‘timing issue’ regards to all of the window cleaning equipment we needed for the TV show. Great service guys!

And I would just like to add that when I finally complete the JRC behind the scenes film, you window cleaners out there if you are not already ordering from JRC you might be wanting to order from these guys after you have seen this film. Great team work at JRC caught on film. I personally think there should be a JRC right here in the UK – because we need it!

If you want to buy equipment from J Racenstein please follow this link: https://www.jracenstein.com/

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